A Sane New Year Resolution: Talk Less About God And Religion And More Of Love And Understanding
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
30 December
2023
“If The Concept Of God Has Any Validity Or Any
Use, It Can Only Be To Make Us Larger, Freer, And More Loving. If God Cannot Do
This, Then It Is Time We Got Rid Of Him.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
The great
American novelist James Baldwin's idea of god as an embodiment of love must be
measured and contextualized in today's times and esp. in the context of India.
Has the
so-called god been able to make us larger, freer and more loving? Has this god,
at any point in time, been able to intervene and stop bloodshed, cruelty and
all sorts of violence in ITS name?
When most
of the humans are unloved in this unloving world, how can we think of a loving
god (who created us)? In fact, the very concept of god has terribly limited us.
Visit Ayodhya and see it for yourself, how the god of a specific community and
religion has made an entire community so damn parochial and unloving.
Hinduism,
which believed in Universalism, is now monomaniac, monolithic, hidebound and
extremely touchy about its plethora of gods and deities. "Jisne Iss
Daur Ke Insaan Ko Kiya Ho Iss Qadar Mahdood/ Wahi Mera Bhi Khuda Ho Mujhe Nahin
Manzoor" (Who made the humans of this age so limited in vision/ Should
also be my god is not acceptable to me), Pakistani Urdu poet Rehaan Layalpuri's
couplet is an inspiration from Abdul Hamid Adam's famous couplet, "Jisne
Iss Daur Ke Insaan Kiye Hon Paida/ Wahi Mera Bhi Khuda Ho Mujhe Manzoor Nahin"
(Who has created these people/ Can never be my god).
Mystics,
Sufis and those who're evolved souls, consider god as a metaphor for
all-encompassing love and don't see IT as an object to spar over and create
differences. But unfortunately, all man-made faiths have neutralized and
nullified the very concept of god and have relegated it to a bone of
contention.
I'm told, a grand mosque (Dhannipur Mosque) is
also being built in Ayodhya, 22 km from the swanky Ram Mandir, to assuage the
wounded sentiments of Muslims.
Alas, humans
are so primitive and religiously envious! We're trying to confine god's
all-pervasiveness to enormous structures called temples and mosques. Just the
way, kids fight over the size of their toys that mine is bigger than yours,
we're fighting over the grandeur of our respective shrines. Where's love?
Where's the idea of freedom and where has gone our breadth of vision?
In the name
of god and religion, humans have shed more blood than all the waters lying in
the great oceans. Let's love each other and bury the hatchet. But will that be
possible? We tend to make New Year Resolutions.
Let this be
our New Year resolution that in 2024, we'll talk less about god and religion
and more of love and understanding. Do I sound utopian?
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A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in
comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed
articles to the world's premier publications in several languages including
Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/sane-resolution-god-religion-love/d/131417
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